Durgapur Steel Thermal Power Station

Kolkata: The Centre has decided to make it mandatory on all upcoming power projects to help rehabilitate the population affected due to the land acquisition for the proposed 80,000 MW capacity expansion during the 11th period, the Union Power Minister, Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde, said on Monday. Mr Shinde was addressing the foundation stone-laying ceremony of the proposed 2X 500 MW Durgapur Steel Thermal Power Station (DSTPS) of Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) on Monday. The Rs 4,500-crore project is scheduled for commissioning in 2010.

According to him, the Centre has taken a broad policy decision to make it mandatory on the future projects to retrain the affected community to ensure their inclusion in the growth process.

Project implementations;

The Minister said that out of the proposed capacity-addition of 80,000 MW, projects having a combined capacity of 65,000 MW are already under implementation. Projects having another 10,000 MW capacity would be awarded shortly. He said that the State Governments concerned are also requested to help the speedy implementation of the projects.

The DVC chairman, Mr Asim Kumar Burman, said that the corporation aims to augment its generation capacities from 2,210 MW in 2006-07 to 9,510 MW in 2010-11. Of the total 5,800 MW capacity would be added by DVC. The rest 1,500 MW would be added by two joint ventures of DVC with SAIL and Tata Power respectively.